Here stands solitude, high on the headland, the wind blowing back her hair, tangling it across her face. Her hands though, remain in the pockets of her coat. She does not reach up to stroke the hair away from her face with either impatience or resignation. She just stares out over the sea towards the horizon.
She sees without looking, watches without seeing. What she searches for is not out there riding those rough white capped waves home to her. The passing she mourns was not lost at sea. He walked out of her door and drove away back inland and away from here.
She does not, not now, even regret his going. She has found within her solitude something she did not realise she lacked until one morning, back in the summer that seemed a lifetime ago, she climbed up here, the highest point for miles around, to just stare out at the sea.
Eventually, as though the sea has answered her unspoken question, she nods towards the sea as though taking her leave of a friend and turns to walk down the slippery path back down to the cottage that sits alone, halfway up this hillside.
She glances down at the rest of the village that sits like a collection of bright stones in the cupped hand of the bay and smiles to herself, a smile like that of one coming home from a long journey.
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